August 13, 2019

The SPURS (Salinity Processes in the Upper Ocean Regional Study) project is a NASA-funded oceanographic process study and associated field program that aims to elucidate key mechanisms responsible for near-surface salinity variations in the oceans. SPURS employs a suite of state-of-the-art in-situ sampling technologies that, combined with remotely sensed salinity fields from the Aquarius/SAC-D, SMAP and SMOS satellites, provide a detailed characterization of salinity structure over a continuum of spatio-temporal scales. While SPURS-1 focused on the salinity maximum region of the sub-tropical N. Atlantic, SPURS-2 concentrated on the dynamic and seasonally variable, rainfall-dominated region of the eastern tropical Pacific centered at 10°N, 125°W.  The SPURS-2 campaign involved two month-long cruises by the R/V Revelle in August-September 2016 and October-November 2017 combined with complementary sampling on a more continuous basis over this period by the schooner Lady Amber.

This second SPURS-2 data release includes an additional six of what will ultimately be a total of twenty eight in-situ datasets produced during the SPURS-2 field campaign that will be archived and distributed by the PO.DAAC.  Datasets comprising this release include: salinity snake, waveglider, rawinsonde, underway CTD (UCTD), underway surface profiling system (USPS) and associated thermosalinograph (TSG) data, and continuous flux technique (CFT) video imagery data.  Sample data plots of several of these datasets are illustrated in figure 1 below.

SPURS-2 Resources at PO.DAAC:

Figure 1.  A+B) Rawinsonde trajectory map and temperature profile time series, C+D) Salinity snake mapped SSS + temperature, time series, E+F) Waveglider salinity at 2m trajectory and times series, G+H) uCTD temperature time series and vertical profile series.